Patterns on the Ground
by Crystal Renee
Summary: This was the night that built the hitokiri known as Battousai


~Patterns On The Ground~  
  
In a whirlwind of movement, the clean sound of slicing changed to the gnawing of sawing and then to the loud thump that resounded throughout the alleyway. A click soon followed, and a figure stepped away form the darker zone and into the dimmer light. Hair of crimson beams of sun-like glory gently blew around his back, his long bangs shielding the eyes that looked down towards the muddy soil.  
  
It had not been raining that day, so the soil was not muddy from a hazy downpour or caressing drizzle. Oddly enough, by the gleam of the moonlight, the slushy mud held a strange, reddish tint that was not normal. It melded with the brown of the dirt in an intricate pattern that resembled a mosaic painted in Rome or Greece, although they were not all common in Japan. His eyes surveyed the red streaks and brown background, following the red as it flowed around obstacles of rock and leaves to the slightly pink stub it was flowing from, dripping like a waterfall to the ground and collecting in a lake-like pool.  
  
The same red liquid flowed from his hair, giving off the illusion that it was melting and falling like rain from his body. Holding out his hand slowly, the liquid poured into his hands, flowing along the creases in his skin like small rivers in a world held in his palm. A dark, foreboding world much like the one he had built for himself and was guaranteed with that night, with the paling object that the red was flowing from.  
  
His hand began to shake and the rivers overflowed, his body shook as he stared longingly at the innocence, if only a little, that was now walking away from him. He looked into the eyes of death, only to find that was not who he was staring at. Death was staring at him, blank in the face and handing over his scythe as if to pass along the burden eh once held. And naively he grasped it, taking it and holding the fate of many in his slowly reddening hands, shaking. His eyes stung as he stared at the ready weapon before dropping it, where it turned to dust.  
  
One by one, rain fell from his eyes, mixing with the red of his blood-like hair, hitting the ground in small explosions of salty water. He fell to his knees in regret, staring at the thing the red was falling from. His mouth was agape, tasting the scarlet liquid that surrounded him in pools as big as lakes. His eyes flew to the sky, where the moon was crimson and sulking behind dark black clouds that overwhelmed it, like the dark that was taking over his life.  
  
The gray of his hakama was tinged with the brick red that surrounded him as he kneeled there, remorse filling his being, tears tearing away from his eyes and slicing down his cheeks to the ground, stinging it with salt and emotions he knew he'd never again be able to show if he was to survive this inner war during the outside battles he was confined to for life. The cage he had built around himself was locked and he was stuck with no escape from his dooming fate.  
  
"I am sorry..." he muttered almost in audibly, but his voice hacked away at the silence in the air. "It is so easy to kill... so easy to take the life of another, but it is not as easy to deal with the guilt brought afterwards..."  
  
Staring once more at the body of the man he had slain that night and role he had unanimously taken with the sin, he stood and walked away. He knew now why death had handed over his scythe... this wasn't the first death he would cause, and there would be many more after the next. He would be dealing out death to many, taking on the role of handing out grim endings to anyone who met his blade. Hanging his head with it's bleeding crimson hair and forced chilling amber eyes, he walked away, with a promise to himself not to forget lives of those he slayed through carnage, and that after the war around him was over, he would make up for all the death.  
  
For now though, he had to live with the guilt and anticipation of more deaths by his sword and more sins by his hands. To deal with the remorse he would have to make sacrifices and promises he could never break. He could never love; he could never make friends or allies. He was alone in this, and that was how it would stay. No one else had to have the burden of death forced upon them, as it was his and his alone, forever embedded in the blade that hung limply from his side as he traveled away from the murder he had recently committed.  
  
And the assassin was born on that night, with the first soul slain and stored in the blade that would haunt him for the rest of his life. The beginning of a legend that would travel to the future and scare many with his awesome power and relentless, maniacal slaughter was carved that night from a young boy of fifteen.  
  
It was the night that Battousai killed for the first time.  
  
Author's Notes: Okay, to clear some things up at the beginning. No, death didn't REALLY give him the scythe. That was a figurative thing. I just thought I would clear that up before you got confused!!!  
  
Luv and hugs,  
  
Crystal Renee 


End file.
